


Heath and Poppy

by frobster



Category: Unspecified Fandom
Genre: Mutual Attraction, Symbiote - Freeform, Symbiotic Relationship, These are just two dorks hanging out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 18:43:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19046206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frobster/pseuds/frobster
Summary: Heath (short for Heather) moved to a big city from their little farming town and their life changed far more dramatically than expected.Heath is nonbinary and I will be using they/them pronouns throughout the story. Poppy is a symbiote and does not have a gender at all. I debated between it/its and they/them and settled on the former.





	Heath and Poppy

Heath owned a little flower shop in a busy city. They lived in the little apartment above the little shop and did little outside of the shop. The flowers were their life and they devoted well over half of every day to the shop, whether it was open or closed. Evenings were their favorite time of day, when the sun sank low and made the whole city look like it was made of gold. The light would spill in through the west-facing windows to illuminate the whole shop, and Heath always took a moment to sit in silence with their eyes closed to enjoy the serenity of it.

 

Along with the flower shop, Heath also worked a small apothecary out of a back room. The heavy wooden door at the back of the shop was always locked if anyone tried the handle, but Heath just walked right in with no problem. There was a small tabletop garden for poisonous plants, colored glass jars full of dried leaves and flowers, a cabinet full of various liquids in various bottles, and a tattered book full of strange recipes. The one window let in feeble light but Heath knew the room so well, they hardly needed to see at all.

 

People would come from all around the city, even all around the state, to buy flowers and potions from Heath. They said the shop had the healthiest flowers they had ever seen, and Heath was quite proud. The little packet of flower food given with every purchase was a unique blend of mundane and magical that allowed the plants to live just a bit longer than seemed natural. A bouquet of roses could smell fresh for a month, an arrangement with five different blooms could stay vibrant and healthy for weeks before the first petal fell. People swore it was magic, and Heath just smiled.

 

The apothecary wasn’t the only unusual thing in Heath’s life. As if moving from a small farming community to a big city on their own wasn’t enough, something absolutely wild happened on their first night finally settled into their apartment. They went up the stairs from the shop after locking all the doors only to find a window open that they were  _ sure _ they closed before they went downstairs. Their small-town paranoia of a big city was strong and they wanted to keep every entrance closed so nobody could break in.

 

But it wasn’t a person they had to be afraid of. In the corner of the living room was a writhing mass of red. It didn’t look like flesh, or anything Heath had seen before. They were frozen in shock and fear as it lurched towards them, stretching out halfway across the room before shrinking back into itself again. After that, Heath lept into action and lunged for the box cutter left on a nearby shelf from unpacking. It wasn’t much, but at least there was something pointy between them and  _ it _ .

 

With shaking hands, Heath carefully stepped closer to the mass. It shivered and trilled weakly, and it struck them that it probably used all its energy in its initial lunge. Maybe it was the farmhand in them that felt the need to help every injured creature they saw, but they ended up setting the box cutter aside as they kneeled down and slowly held out a hand to touch it. And just as they opened their mouth to murmur some reassurance, it lashed out again and wrapped around their wrist.

 

Heath screamed and stumbled backwards, shaking their arm in attempt to get free. But despite how weak it had seemed earlier, it clung to them now like it would never let go. And that seemed to be the plan as it started oozing up their arm under the sleeve of their shirt, spreading across their skin with searching tendrils that seeped into their very pores. There was a growing pressure across their body as it continued to cover their skin until Heath’s voice was stolen as it covered their mouth. The last thing they saw was the ceiling as they fell on their back and passed out.

 

But that was over three years ago now. Heath liked their new roommate, body-mate, whatever the proper term was. It had introduced itself as Poppy and liked to eat the flowers Heath so carefully grew themself, along with deer antlers and birds. Heath had been terrified at first, and their initial few months together were an absolute disaster. There was quite an intense learning curve involved in unexpectedly gaining a symbiote.

 

Now it was relatively simple to keep Poppy under wraps when they were out in public. Though it was perpetually curious and practically dragged Heath around sometimes, they understood its excitement and could forgive most of its outbursts. Rather than deer antlers year-round, which Heath could really only get during hunting season, they bought antler dog chews to feed Poppy during the off-season and it seemed to accept the substitution, with only minimal grumbling.

 

Poppy had even given Heath the idea to try out hydroponic gardening. There wasn’t much room in the shop for a whole setup so the living room was converted into an indoor garden for the time being. After a long day in the shop, Heath would sink into the big leather armchair next to the pool that was growing strawberries, dip their hand into it, and let Poppy swim. The water felt good on its form and pruning the plants mostly sated its craving for flowers, though it still reached out to snap one up in its sharp jaws when there weren’t any customers around.

 

There was a simple harmony between the two of them that reminded Heath why Poppy’s kind was referred to as symbiotes. They achieved a balance that didn’t feel common, even with the knowledge of other life beyond Earth. The whole universe could be populated but there wasn’t a single bond like the one they had, and Heath liked that quite a bit.

**Author's Note:**

> So this started just as a symbiote oc idea for a server I'm in and then it became a whole thing. Heath is essentially a self-insert since the server is for symbiote roleplay. I'm just figuring this out as I go along.


End file.
